The present invention relates to a container for storing digital signal recording discs, such as compact discs, laser discs, compact disc read-only memory, rewritable optical discs, etc., and more particularly to a disc container which is provided with a locating mechanism for quickly selecting one single desired disc from a number of discs stored inside the container while the selected disc can be conveniently replaced back to the container after use.
With the popularity of portable laser disc player, portable laser disc container becomes important, too. A common portable laser disc container may usually contain about 6 pieces of disc with the discs overlapping over one another and therefore not easily located and picked out from the container. Moreover, since such portable disc container is usually used while the user is standing or walking, the user has to hold the container with one hand and inconveniently locate the desired disc with another hand. Furthermore, the overlapped discs are not easily separated from one another especially when the user has to do this with only one hand.
There are still other disadvantages existed in the common disc container. One example of such disadvantages is the widely opened container covers cause the discs therein to radially spread and be exposed to the air and accordingly the dust in the air. It is still not easy to take one single disc from the container even all the discs are radially spread because the spread angle between each two discs is not big enough for the user to pick out the desired disc with fingers. In addition, the discs might very possibly fall down to the ground in the event they are not carefully handled while they are radially spread in the opened container.
FIGS. 9 through 12 illustrate a conventional container 40 for digital signal recording discs. The disc container 40 mainly includes a plurality of beads 41 and an upper and a lower springy clamps 42, 43 for controlling the delivery of one single desired disc from the container each time. The shortcoming of this type of disc container 40 is that the container has disc retaining plates 44 each of them has a so small thickness that it is very difficult for a user to catch one of the desired disc retaining plates 44 with his or her finger which is apparently thicker than the disc retaining plate 44 without touching and moving discs at two sides of the desired disc. A disc has a thickness about 1.25 mm only, and, to minimize the overall volume of the disc container while maximize the numbers of disc to be carried, the disc retaining plates 44 are designed to be as thin as possible (about 2.5 mm). On the other hand, the thickness of a finger is more than 12 mm. It can be imagined that more than one disc retaining plate 44 will be caught at a finger holding member 45 thereof at the same time instead of removing only one single desired disc from the container.